Of time, whales, and other assets

Abstract

This Perspective offers some reflections on how multiple times are entangled in the current moment of living on a planet pushed beyond its limits and the way in which the present instability provides the basis not for radical action but for continued speculation and value creation. Promising to turn living whales into assets, the whale bond – an idea towards which various some private actors have quietly been working for some years – is one of the many strange products of the current speculative delirium. Bringing together insights from maritime environmental science, political economy, and literature, this Perspective reflects on the different times embodied in whales as commodity/asset as a device to highlight the fallacy of putting our hopes for escaping the current predicament on the subjugation of the living – and ‘ecosystem services’ more generally – into asset forms.